There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them.

-- Leonato, speaking of his niece, Beatrice, in "Much Ado About Nothing."

On a late-spring afternoon outside the Old Globe Theatre, the sun cowers behind clouds, as if a bit afraid to take a peek at what’s going on below.

Down at ground level, an alarmed eavesdropper on two actors’ barbed conversation can only sympathize.

DETAILS

“Much Ado About Nothing”

Old Globe Summer Shakespeare Festival

Runs in repertory with “The Tempest” and “Amadeus.” Now in previews; opens June 29. Through Sept. 25. (Check with theater for complete performance dates and times.)

Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Balboa Park

Tickets: Single tickets start at $29; three-play packages $72-$243

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Online: theoldglobe.org

Jonno Roberts, who plays Benedick in the Globe’s staging of the comedy “Much Ado About Nothing,” is holding forth in the courtyard on such subjects as compassion and vulnerability and, specifically, his cast mate Georgia Hatzis’ alleged lack of those qualities.

“I cry. I can cry,” protests Hatzis, who plays Beatrice in the Summer Shakespeare Festival production.

“You can, but you stick your finger in your eye to do it,” Roberts chides, adding: “She sits in funerals with a spray bottle.”

Hatzis: “Oh, stop. You’re so mean.”

Roberts: “You don’t have a heart.”

Hatzis: “I don’t have a heart. Because you took it.”

The last sentiment seems a perfect, almost heartwarming pivot from bickering to affection — right up until Hatzis retracts it with a laugh and an unprintable linguistic flourish.

Forget the “merry war” onstage. In real life, Roberts and Hatzis can work up the sort of verbo-nuclear conflict that might make even Benedick and Beatrice blanch.

And by the way, these two are married.

It’s hard to think of a Shakespearean pair this couple is more suited to portraying than Benedick and Beatrice — except maybe Kate and Petruchio, the mutually spiteful romantic duo from “The Taming of the Shrew.”

As it happens, there was a chance Roberts and Hatzis would have played those roles together at the Globe last year. But Hatzis ultimately was not able to audition, leaving Roberts to do the piece opposite Emily Swallow.

Ron Daniels, who directed “Shrew,” managed to get the two together this year for his staging of “Much Ado,” which joins “The Tempest” and “Amadeus” (both directed by fest artistic head Adrian Noble) in the lineup.

In “Much Ado,” Beatrice and Benedick are a reluctant romantic couple in 16th-century Italy who are tricked into confessing their love for each other. Their story is set against the parallel tale of Claudio and Hero, trusting young lovers duped into suspecting duplicity.

Watching the Jonno-and-Georgia follies offstage, the thought strikes that maybe this pair isn’t actually so much like the couple they portray — that maybe their bristling back-and-forth is instead a masquerade like something out of the play’s plot.

But something about the way they so eagerly feed off each other’s jabs seems too authentic to dismiss. Not to mention how hints of tenderness somehow make it into the mix.